What to Stock in Your Fridge this Summer

Forget swimsuit season, summer is stronger season: the time of year to feel healthiest in your suddenly-on-display skin. And we are all about embracing the warm-weather crop of fruits and full-flavored vegetables. Summer’s superfoods are great for our bodies: boosting energy levels, helping defend against the strong summer sun, and hydrating from the inside out. As we chow down on seasonal fruits and veggies, we’re also mindful to make sure our pet friends are getting their fair share of wholesome ingredients to prep for summer as well.

Luckily, Blue Buffalo’s Earth Essentials™ makes it easy: the brand packs both their wet and dry foods with protein, ancient grains, and produce that are just as beneficial to your four-legged companion as the yummy seasonal produce you’re eating. Read on to learn more about five healthy summer ingredients you should stock your refrigerator with this season—and what you can have on hand for the pup, too.

Tomatoes are summer’s ultimate food: at this time of year, they’re deep red, juicy and bursting with sweetness. More than that, they’re packed with lycopene, the natural pigment that give the fruits their color, which offers an important fringe benefit. Studies show that people who eat a diet rich in lycopene have increased skin protection: a reduction of redness and less DNA damage from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. While all types of tomatoes boast these compelling health benefits, we love to snack on tiny cherry and grape tomatoes, whose portability makes them an ideal candidate for toting in lunch boxes and to summer picnics.

Throughout the summer months, farm stands and farmers’ markets overflow with berries that we can bake into tarts and crumbles, boil into jams and jellies and just eat raw by the fistful. Of all of them, blueberries are perhaps our favorite: deeply sweet but also a little tart, they’re a superfood that has been shown to help lower blood pressure and maintain bone structure and strength. We like that since they’re packed with Vitamin C, they’re good for our skin, too. The berries are also found in all three flavors of Blue Buffalo’s Earth’s Essentials dry food, as well as their Apple Orchard Clusters Blueberry Crunch.

Packed with moisture and incredibly sweet, watermelon is the quintessential summer snack -- ice-cold in dripping slices, classed up into a watermelon-feta salad or blended into a frozen beverage. True to its name, the melon is fully 93 percent water, helping to ward off any dehydration from the hot summer sun; plus, studies suggest that the fruit might help lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. As in tomatoes, the fruit’s lycopene helps prevent skin damage, too.

Kale

Best enjoyed in the late spring and early summer before temperatures get too warm, kale is a food world star these days, showing up in full-flavored Caesar salads, crisped in the oven into kale chips and blended into nutrient-rich green juices. High in calcium, Vitamin A, and anti-inflammatory fatty acids, kale is as healthy as it is delicious. And while your four-legged friend might not want to eat it raw, she’ll love it as part of all three flavors of Blue Buffalo’s Earth’s Essentials dry food.

Hot Peppers

As the weather turns warm, all kinds of hot peppers—think jalapeños, serranos and poblanos—come into their full ripeness, deepening into dark shades of green, yellow and red. While we love the spicy touch these peppers add to our salsas and homemade hot sauces, we’re even more wild over the health benefits the chilies offer: increasing circulation, lowering cholesterol, and aiding digestion. Capsaicin, the compound that lends hot peppers their spice, is irritant to dogs’ digestive systems, so keep the cayenne all to yourself.

Sweet and Sour Cherries

With a super-short season spanning only June, July and August, summer cherries’ brevity makes them all the more craveable. Whether devoured by the handful, baked into clafoutis or latticed into a flaky-crusted pie, cherries are the ultimate seasonal crop for many fruit lovers. Happily, they’re super-healthy, too, packed with antioxidants, and anti-inflammatories. Sour cherries, a classic pie filling, have also been shown to boost the body’s production of melatonin, the hormone responsible for regulating sleep patterns, and can help curb the insomnia brought on by late summer nights. What with their pits and stems, cherries aren’t the ideal choice for pups, so go ahead and hoard these summer beauties all for yourself. Your pup can snack happily on Blue’s Earth Essentials Apple Orchard Clusters right alongside you.